Power Wars Blog by Charlie Savage

Issue to watch: What are the limits on “collective self-defense” of partner forces?

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, has sent a letter to the Pentagon continuing a dialogue about the executive branch’s expansive view of “collective self defense.” The letter contains an excerpt from a letter the military had sent him earlier this year, which is not public, in which it says that the US military has legal authority to defend partner forces with airstrikes even when their adversary is not a congressionally authorized wartime enemy of the United States.

We basically knew that already from last year’s strikes against Assad forces in Syria who were menacing U.S.-backed rebels who are also fighting the Islamic State. But Kaine wants to know more about who decides who counts as a defensible partner force, and what limits there are. What he is getting at is the question of whether the executive branch is using this theory to essentially seize unilateral mutual-defense treaty making powers for itself.

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